Sandra Santillan first encountered the Hank and Billye Suber Aaron Young Scholars Summer Research Institute as a high school student at Hillside High School, encouraged by a teacher who recognized her strong writing skills. “I thought I was in trouble,” she says, recalling how her teacher pulled her aside. Instead, the teacher introduced her to a program that would transform her worldview.
“That first year for me was extremely beneficial,” she says. “It taught me a lot about the system and the injustices that a lot of racial groups are subject to in basically every point of our lives.”
Now a mentor and a longtime teaching assistant in the program, Santillan has dedicated nearly five years to guiding younger students through their own journeys of academic growth and social awareness, all while navigating her own college experience and personal development.
Growing up in Durham and deeply rooted in a community of Black and brown peers, Santillan always felt a sense of belonging. The Aaron Young Scholars Summer Research Institute, part of the Cook Center’s educational programming that is now in its eleventh year, exposed her to broader systemic inequities that she hadn’t fully seen before. “It was really eye-opening to understand how Black and brown people are discriminated against by the housing industry, the justice system, and [the] public health system,” she says.
After completing the program as a student, Santillan first returned as an intern and then as a teaching assistant. That shift from participant to leader offered new lessons. “I learned how much I liked being involved in the teaching process and how much I liked interacting with the students day to day,” she says. “It is a really gratifying experience, both in being able to connect to the students and knowing I made a positive change.”
Equity and mentorship are woven into everything Santillan does. Now an undergraduate biology major with a focus on integrative physiology and neurobiology at NC State, she balances her studies with leadership roles in the Goodnight Scholars program, an initiative supporting low- to middle-income students in STEM fields. There, she organizes cooking classes, visits community colleges to promote scholarship opportunities, and helps lead STEM outreach events for underserved youth. Whether it’s baking tres leches cakes in a student lounge to teaching middle schoolers about engineering, Santillan stays committed to sharing knowledge and creating access.
For Santillan, returning to the Aaron Young Scholars program year after year is more than a routine—it is a calling. “I always really look forward to the interactions, there is so much to learn from Durham Public School teachers in this setting” she says. “And helping another group of students is always the most exciting part to me.”
She is also mindful of how today’s media landscape can distort young people’s understanding of the world, making the program’s mission more critical than ever. “If we can catch students when they’re younger to not just be understanding of these systems, but also [to] think critically, that’s really important,” Santillan says.
“The program means a lot for the community,” she continues. “Being more knowledgeable about these systems kind of breeds the desire to change them.”